Dragonstar Arena

So what is DSA? It’s a 10 Stage four player dungeon. This provides nearly non-stop action, gear drops, achievements and excitement. That’s why you play DSA! This guide’s purpose is to explain the basics and provide a list and links to each stage covered in separate post. I’ll be releasing individual post for various stages as each has a lot of information but you can come back here as I update them and click on Stages for links.

One of the main reasons to run DSA is the phat loots! Here’s some of the items you can expect out of DSA (VR 13 drops from normal and VR 14 drops in Veteran).

Dragonstar Arena Specific Gear

Archer’s Mind Set

(2 items) Adds 87 Max Stamina

(3 items) Adds 4% Weapon Critical

(4 items)Adds 4% Weapon Critical

(5 items) Attacking from stealth increases Critical Damage by 15%. Critical Damage increased by 5.0% when not attacking from stealth

Destruction Mastery Set

(2 items) Adds 87 Max Magicka

(3 items) Adds 4% Spell Critical

(4 items) Adds 8 Spell Damage

(5 items) Robes of Destruction Mastery Increase maximum Magicka by 6.0% while you have a destruction staff equipped

Achievements and Dye

Dragonstar Arena Conqueror – Beat Veteran DSA.

Dragonstar Arena Champion- Beat Normal DSA

Dye – Adamantine Silver

DSA Basics

DRAGONSTAR ARENA LOCATION

How do we get to DSA? It’s in Upper Craglorn in the northwest part of the map. You can’t directly port there, so you’ll have to get on your horse and ride up. Thankfully, the scenery and entrance is beautiful. Before you port in, make sure you’re on the right mode.

MODES: NORMAL AND VETERAN

There are currently two modes that range in difficulty and mechanics, Normal and Veteran. I recommend Normal mode for beginners or anyone under Veteran Rank 12. Veteran mode can only be done with VR 14 characters and is very challenging. While the stakes are higher in Veteran mode, so is the loot. VR 13 level gear drops in normal mode while the highest level VR 14 only drops in Veteran. Every small bit of resources counts, so farm Vet DSA when you get the hang of it.

PREPARATION

Before entering, make sure you’re ready for the challenge. You don’t need the Best in Slot (BiS) gear though I recommend at least 2,800 health and 3,300 as a tank. We do a general check list prior to entering.

Alternate Gear – This is optional, but I like to have a secondary set of gear for tanking or DPS that I can switch if someone drops from our group due to issues with connection, family, or life in general. Taking this to the next level, I’ve even got jewelry crafted with fire, ice, and poison resist for each stage. It makes a huge difference though very expensive.

Food – Make sure you have a couple of pieces of food as this might take over two hours 400+ health is very useful here.

Potions – I can’t stress enough how important potions can be to your overall performance. Bring tons of potions from variety of resources (as in like 100 per resources). The best are tri-stat potions which provide health, stamina, and magicka though they can be very expensive. If you’re DPS or healer, make sure to bring some weapon/spell power and critical chance increase potions. Again, expensive but worth it.

Soul gems – Needed for resurrections and weapon charges.

ROUNDS

Stages one through nine follow a common theme in terms of rounds, each has five. Only Stage 10 do you have one round which is beating the reigning champion and becoming the new one. As you walk into the arena, you’ll notice the opposite end has a large door that you move through to the next arena via a portal. This arena has cauldrons that will glow blue every time you finish a round within a stage. So if you’re wondering what round you’re on, look towards the exit.

Round 1 – Round one introduces the enemy and gets you familiar with the theme of the stage.

Round 2 – This round will introduce a mechanic like poison gas in stage three.

Round 3 – Another stage that builds on the previous mechanics and adds even more enemies or a mini boss to make things even harder.

Round 4 – The final wave before the boss and sometimes the most challenging which will test your limits with massive mob pulls.

Round 5 – The last phase generally involves all the same mechanics plus a boss or two (yeah these are hard).

LENGTH

DSA can be a time commitment. In my very best run (minus a couple of bio breaks), we completed normal in one hour (with no deaths). Veteran on the hand can take four hours to complete. When we finished in the top 10, it only took two hours though everyone had made it to round 10 and were very familiar with the fights.